THE withdrawal of funding for an ambitious Great Western Highway upgrade is an opportunity for rail in this region, Upper House MP Sam Farraway says.
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Mr Farraway was known as a passionate advocate for the proposed highway duplication from Lithgow to Katoomba when he was the regional transport minister under the former Coalition state government.
He has since been a vociferous critic of the Labor governments at both state and federal levels as they have taken funding from the multi-billion-dollar upgrade.
He showed a different side to his transport interests when he spoke at a Central West Rail Action Summit held in Bathurst last week.
In urging those present - which included some who had travelled from Orange - to get together to come up with an overall rail plan for the region, he referred to the highway duplication.
"The Great Western Highway policy is now a complete mess," he said.
"So there is a huge opportunity to push rail.
"The reality is that the upgrade of that highway has been put back a decade.
"The new regional fleet [the replacement of the current fleet with new trains]: the first train is here.
"The conversation about converting Bullets from Endeavours [a class of diesel units] to the short regionals, that conversation is now."
Where the Bullet initiates, where it's stabled, what sort of train it is, the fit-out, "this is all now", he said.
Rail Action Bathurst's John Hollis, who chaired the summit, said it was important to "focus our thoughts" on the Central West as a whole - from Lithgow to Dubbo and everything in between.
He said the change in Tarana and Rydal had been obvious since they became stops on the Bathurst Bullets.
"Tarana, for example, the pub has been renovated tremendously.
"There is a general store that has opened in an old building.
"At Rydal, the pub there has been renovated. And the railway station at Tarana has been renovated."
He said Bathurst and Orange are benefiting from tree-changers making a move and Parkes is being changed by the Inland Rail.
"And we want to be in front of that when we look at the transport that is provided for us.
"So I look forward to more collaboration with other groups."
Collaboration invitation
Dr Michelle Zeibots - a transport planner and a senior lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney - was the principal speaker at last week's Central West Rail Action Summit held in the Bathurst Regional Council chambers.
Her message was that those who hope to see services improved on the Main Western line through the Blue Mountains, Bathurst and Orange need to get organised and get talking.
"Identifying our points of agreement is something that we need to do - that's the first business that we need to get down to," Dr Zeibots told the Western Advocate after the summit.
"And I think part of that is also about finding how we can collaborate in a highly constructive way with technical people in the state government and with our Regional Transport Minister, Jenny Aitchison."
